AN URGENT NEED. Doctors for the Back Country.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 174, 31 October 1903, Page 6

AN URGENT NEED. Doctors for the Back Country.

GET out on the land, young man " Take a wife with you, young man, and get as far back as you can New Zealand wants popu lation, and the rural kind of population is the sort she wants most There are millions of acres of good Government land, young man, and it will grow anything. Thistles, gorse, ragwort, broom, and burr find refuge there undisturbed by the Inspector of Noxious Weeds, for he is busy getting a crop of settlers summoned, and has no jurisdiction over Crown land The back country will grow anything, young man. •» • ♦ Children grow there, and are physically superior, it is thought, to the town aiticle You are a thinking young man, and you love your wife better than yourself? You won't take her into the backblocks, on a section that may be a, day's ride from the nearest doctor? You will probably be so healthy digging out weeds and planting cereals and potatoes that you won't need a doctor Your wife, however, most likely w ill * * * The Lance has pointed out before that the scarcity of doctors in the backblocks is the most potent factor in not only frightening people who might become settlers, but m inducing a dread of natural increase which should always attend a settled population. We therefore come to the logical conclusion that settlement is hindered, and the bnth-rate checked, because there are not enough doctors in the back country of New Zealand The Friendly Societies' deputation, which waited on the Premier on Saturday last, asked, as the Lance has previously asked, that the Government assist in obtaining medical officers for backblocks settlements. a. * * If the Government is sincere in its affirmed intention to' 'do all m its power to further settlement, and encourage the birth-rate, it absolutely must do what is now asked it It has a large staff of veterinarians It will improve the breed of horses and cattle It insures people's lives, and intends to insure their property. It is its duty to encourage fathers and mothers to overcome the dread above referred to, so that it may have more lives to insure, and, even if it were to go slow on veterinary matters, and imported no more racing stallions, spending the money instead on this intensely necessaiy woik, it would do a work that would redound to its credit much more than can the winning of the New Zealand Cup, or the proud boast that a Government stallion sired a Caulfield Cup winner